Chapter 5

Chapter Five

PIPER

A single thought penetrated Piper’s shock: Downstairs, at the other end of the manor, something had exploded.

Lyre and Ash were both facing the stairs, listening.

For a few terrifying moments, silence had settled over the Consulate—but now, noise was rising again. Clatters, clunks, footsteps, voices. It was an unintelligible jumble, but it sent a spike of panic through Piper’s chest.

Her father and uncle were down there somewhere.

She took a lunging step forward—and another crash shook the house. Not an explosion, but a shrieking bang like a bulldozer driving through a wall. The Consulate’s front wall, judging by the direction of the sound.

“What was that?” she whispered. She wasn’t sure why, but a scared little corner of her brain did not want to make any loud noises.

More clatters, clangs, and slams echoed from the foyer. A loud thump, then another crash. Was a daemon delegate on a rampage? Where were Quinn and Calder? All she could hear was crunching and thudding.

A sudden movement—Ash’s dragonet sweeping past the three of them, wings beating as it soared down the hall toward the stairs. Ash followed.

Piper’s paralysis snapped. “Wait!”

Ash didn’t stop. Piper took two running steps to catch up to him, almost reaching out to grab his arm before stopping herself.

“You’re supposed to stay up here,” she said as his gaze cut to her. “I’ll go see what?—”

Her voice broke off, the rest of her sentence forgotten as their eyes met.

His irises were black. Not stormy, not dark gray, but solid, light-devouring ebony. There was nothing human or civilized about those eyes, and the hard, merciless lines of his face were just as terrifying.

Her feet rooted to the floor, and he kept walking. Another crash on the main level shook the floor.

Trying to stop Ash would get her killed, so she’d just have to beat him down there instead. She launched into a sprint. He was almost at the end of the hall, where the stairs and an unobstructed view down into the foyer waited.

She barreled toward him, intending to brush past him—but he pivoted. Inhumanly fast, he grabbed her arm, almost yanking her off her feet, and swung her behind him. As she caught her balance from the violent relocation, he backed up, forcing her away from the stairs with him.

“What are you doing?” she demanded, trying to step past only for him to block her with an outstretched arm.

“You don’t want to go down there,” he growled. “There’s a choronzon.”

“A choronzon? ” Lyre repeated, catching up to them. “What the hell is a choronzon doing here?”

Piper tried to sidestep around Ash. How did he know what was down there? He hadn’t gotten close enough to the stairs to see anything. “What’s a choronzon? Is that a daemon caste?”

Another bang erupted from the main level, followed by the sound of snapping wood—like the railing being ripped off the staircase.

“It’s a beast,” Lyre said tersely. “From the Underworld.”

Piper’s blood chilled.

“They’re big and nasty,” he added as he turned to Ash. “Fighting it is a bad idea—a very bad idea.”

Ash hesitated, the air around him sizzling with the growing weight of power.

A deep, wet-sounding grunt echoed up the stairs.

Sucking in a breath, Piper grabbed Lyre’s arm. “I know a different way to get downstairs. Come on!”

Lyre seized Ash’s arm and yanked the draconian after him as Piper dragged them back through the sitting room and into the far hall. There were three bedroom doors—hers, her father’s, and her uncle’s. She swerved into her room. The two daemons piled in after her, and she locked the door.

With the two daemons watching expectantly, she threw open her closet doors and started flinging clothes out. Assorted shoes followed, then an armload of old stuffed animals.

“What are you doing?” Lyre asked, pulling a pink bra off his shoulder and tossing it onto her bed. Ash edged behind Lyre to get out of the path of flying clothes, his attention on the door.

Piper threw another handful of laundry out of her way and found the tiny panel where the floor joined the wall at the back of the closet. She pressed it. A loud click echoed through the closet and a section of wall popped inward. She shoved it open to reveal a tall, narrow passage.

“Secret escape route,” she said shortly.

Her bedroom door clunked, the sound making her jump. Wood groaned as it bowed inward, and cracks splintered down the length of the door. Something was pushing against it—something really big and really strong.

Heart hammering in her throat, Piper turned sideways and shuffled into the passage as fast as she could, trusting the daemons to follow. Lyre squeezed in after her, swearing under his breath at the sound of tearing fabric. The faint light of the bedroom vanished with a click as Ash closed the hidden panel.

Wood split loudly, the sound muffled by the walls. The choronzon was in her room.

She scuttled down the passage until her foot met the edge of a drop-off in the darkness. Lyre was right behind her, his breathing loud in the cramped space.

Feeling around with her foot, she searched for the first rung of the ladder—only then remembering that Quinn had removed the ladder last year to stop her from sneaking downstairs. Why hadn’t she remembered that two minutes ago?

“The ladder is gone,” she hissed in dismay.

An ear-splitting bang made Lyre jolt into her, almost knocking her in headfirst. The hideous sound of tearing wood filled the tunnel, and light from her bedroom illuminated the drop in front of Piper.

More cracks, snaps, and thuds. It sounded like the choronzon was cramming itself into the narrow passage—and destroying the walls in the process. How freakishly large was this thing?

“Hurry up!” Ash barked.

Piper jumped, her knees bent for the impact. Her feet hit the floor, and pain shot through her heels.

A whoosh of air overhead was her only warning, and she scrambled out of the way as Lyre landed beside her.

“Go!” he said urgently.

The passage was slightly wider on this level and ran the length of the manor. She dashed down it, desperate to get out of the confined space before the choronzon caught up to them. A faint light shone around the edges of a panel set in the passage wall—an exit into the foyer.

Behind her, the crashing and snapping was as deafening as a landslide. She couldn’t tell whether the choronzon was on their level.

She reached the panel. Panic gripped her as she felt around wildly for the release latch. Lyre crowded in behind her, Ash right behind him.

Where was the latch? Her hands slid all around the edges, picking up slivers from the rough wood. The walls trembled, wood groaning.

Pushing her aside, Ash slapped his hand to the panel. The air crackled, and then the panel burst apart, shards of wood flying across the foyer.

Lyre sprang out ahead of her and into the front foyer. He spun and snatched Piper’s arm, hauling her out, then reached back for Ash as the draconian filled the opening.

Ash’s feet went out from under him. He pitched forward as his legs were yanked backward. A blood-red tentacle as thick as an arm spun around his neck and dragged him into the dark passageway.

“Ash!” she shouted.

“Go find your father.” Lyre shoved Piper away from the passage. “Now!”

Without a backward glance, he dove in after Ash. A soundless concussion from inside made dust sift from the ceiling.

Piper spun, taking in the foyer in a single panicked sweep—the arched double doors obliterated, debris littering the floor, half the railing posts bent or broken on the grand staircase. The chair behind the reception desk had been crushed into kindling, and dramatic smears of blood streaked the white marble floor. There was no other sign of Consul Owen.

She sprinted out of the foyer. The meeting room was near the back of the manor, and as she raced down the hall toward it, the acrid odor of burnt things assaulted her.

The meeting room door was no longer on its hinges and lay in the hallway. With panic jolting through every synapse of her brain, Piper careened across the threshold.

Her limbs locked. She slid to a halt, struggling to process the scene before her.

The exterior wall had been turned into a jagged, gaping hole. The heavy wooden table had been flipped onto its side. Chairs had been obliterated. Chunks of the wall and ceiling littered the floor. Blackened, charred surfaces glowed with live embers.

And bodies. Dead bodies were scattered amongst the destruction, blistered, scorched, and broken.

Somewhere among them were her father and uncle.